Of course, I’d made a mistake about Wilkins. She might have been thinking about her father and Olaf, but she was also thinking way above them, had to in the circumstances because the instinct for survival runs strong in all of us at such times, and in Wilkins probably stronger than most because it was backed by a natural obstinacy of character. She was to one side of me and a little ahead, a wing of rusty hair untidy over one ear, sensible old cardigan creased, sensible tweed skirt drooping a little unevenly to one side. To survive, risks had to be taken. Her hand came down sharply into the front pocket of her skirt. She whipped out the pliers she carried there and threw them awkwardly at the lamp.
She missed by a foot, but she hit the vase of sand lilies and the whole lot went crashing to the ground. Outside, the helicopter was down. The engine note had changed.
Aunt Saraband’s face showed her anger.
‘You really are a dangerous woman.’
Wilkins looked at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘You tried. It’s a good thought to go out on.’
Dawson said, ‘It’s funny about women not being able to throw straight.’ Then to Aunt Saraband he went on, ‘Look—I know now you’re not going to do anything to me. But do you really have to . . . well, do anything to these two? It doesn’t serve any useful purpose and I’m sure they would keep the secret. Please . . . why do something so unnecessary?’
Duchêne said, ‘It has been decided not by us. We have orders.’
Aunt Saraband said, ‘Francois, you take him out. Duchêne and I will do what is necessary here.’ She looked at Wilkins. ‘I am sorry. Personally I consider it unnecessary. I would trust you both, but unfortunately my employers haven’t the first-hand field knowledge of you that I have. To them you are just two people who could talk loosely and ruin this thing by creating publicity . . . bad publicity, for both sides.’
It was then that the oil lamp was shattered. Olaf did it. Though it was some time before the thing was sorted out in my mind because I was too busy going into action on the heels of a miracle.
There was the sound of a shot, the window glass crashed, and the oil lamp exploded in a brief flare of flame and then there was a grey gloom in the room, and the sound of a window being kicked in, frame shattered, as Olaf, a dark mountainous bulk, burst through.
I didn’t wait to congratulate him. The edge of my right hand was already hitting out for the spot where I took Aunt Saraband’s wrist to be. I got her inner elbow and heard the gun go to the floor. I heard Dawson shout, heard Olaf bellow, ‘Hilda, this way!’
For a moment or two the room was a grey tangle of movements, noisy, with chairs going over and the sound of two shots. One of them fanned my neck and then I heard Duchêne roar, ‘Stop shooting!’ He was right. It was dangerous for both sides.
‘I’ve got him!’
It was Paulet and briefly I saw him hurl himself at Olaf. Paulet, big, competent and dangerous. Not the kind of man I would want hurled on me. But he had met his match. Olaf stretched out his giant arms, embraced him, crushed him, spun him round, picked him up and threw him. Paulet hit the wall and dropped to the floor with a crash that shook the house.
l saw Olaf spin round and grab Wilkins. I kicked out at Aunt Saraband who was coming at me like a Kilkenny cat who was going to knock the English stuffing out of a London tom. I got her legs and she went down.
I picked up a gun from the floor and the next moment I was at the window with Dawson. We went through after Olaf and Wilkins in another minor explosion of glass and wood. Dawson fell and rolled over on the hard-baked ground. I jerked him up and we ran. I heard him sobbing and cursing to himself and he pulled back from me. I grabbed harder and kept him going. In the fall he had ricked his left ankle. Ahead of us in the growing dawn I saw Olaf running, pulling Wilkins along, heading up a small path that led to the headland.
*
As we crested the rise to the top of the headland plateau the sun began to lip the eastern edge of the sea away to our left. It was a good sunrise, as sunrises go, a fancy affair of orange and tangerine flame, with a high wash of slowly fading pearliness in the upper sky, and we had time to admire it because Dawson really had done something to his ankle. He could only just limp along.
Olaf said, ‘We’ve got a mile and over to the end of the headland. Then a path to the beach. I’ve got a motorboat standing off.’ He looked at Dawson. ‘I carry you?’
Dawson shook his head.
‘We’ve got to do something,’ I said. ‘Here comes the helicopter.’
It came up the wind, rising, crabbed around in a circle and found us. It came down to about two hundred feet and hung above us, the racket deafening.
Olaf fired a shot at it.
I said, ‘Don’t waste your shots.’
We made about two hundred yards as fast as we could with Dawson, the helicopter hanging over us. I couldn’t see who was in it, but it was a Westland Whirlwind.
Wilkins looked back and said, ‘They’re coming.’
I looked round. Topping the headland crest now were Duchêne and Paulet and Peter Brown, running
